Finding Inspiration in Palm Springs

If there is one thing I remember about Disney World is the impeccable landscapes. There was a show on one of the cable networks that reported on this characteristic featuring the staff and maintenance standards they follow to keep this place magical.

Palm Springs, California became my adult version of Disney World. I had heard and seen their modern architecture online, but nothing prepared me for what I found; it was midcentury modern heaven. Like a child visiting Disney World, I set out – camera in hand – to discover their neighborhoods and I could not believe my eyes! I never imagined a city having too much modernism, but Palm Springs does and in a most outstanding way. And just like Disney World, their desert landscapes are impeccable and simply gorgeous. There is no question there is pride in these homes, for it almost feels like there is an ongoing competition for the best preserved home. It even goes beyond preservation because new homes are heavily influenced by the modern movement that has made Palm Springs a desirable destination.

It intrigues me how much most of their modern homes look like ours, and it saddens me to realize we may not share the same passion for the style. Their hotels built in the 50s and 60s thrive, and are sought after by visitors who pay good money for the modern experience. During a recent interview with Stephen Reynolds, owner of the Echo Hotel in Edinburg, he said most people recommend for him to demolish the place and build something new instead! They need to pay a visit to Palm Springs.

I am posting a few of the photos my husband Lupe took during our visit for inspiration. You will notice how some look very much like our modern homes. You will also notice how much care and thought is invested.

McAllen artist and art collector Ann Maddox Moore built this amazing modern house, designed by Merle A. Simpson, in 1959. Nestled at the end of a cul-de-sac that backs up to the Louisiana-Río Grande Canal Co.’s main canal, which ran parallel to S. 2nd Street, the one-story, post-beam-and-deck house is extraordinarily simple. A honeycombed solar […]

Architect Max Burkhart’s house attests to his involvement with concrete construction in the 1960s and 1970s. Burkhart founded Valcon, a Pharr construction company specializing in concrete tilt wall construction, with Farris O. Shannon in 1963. The one-story courtyard house is entered through a canopied porte-cochère-carport roofed with concrete umbrella vaults supported on extremely thin columns. […]

This is a design – build project conducted in partnership between Texas Southmost College Architecture Program and Brownsville Healthy Communities and bc Workshop. A two week design phase was completed by a group of ten (10) students from TSC Architecture Program as one of their Design Studio II service learning projects. A committee of professional […]

Thanks to preservation conscious developers like Jim Snyder of Elm Tree Partners, LLC the Lubbock, Texas Post Office & Federal Building will soon be a mixed-use residential complex. The building will house 24 apartments, and will preserve architectural features like windows, flooring, stairways and ceilings. This past month of May, I had the privilege of […]

Juan O’Gorman designed this modern building for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in 1937. I had the opportunity of visiting this past month of February 2016. The place is incredible! industrial and modern even today. Large windows are the center piece of the building and the second floor bridge connecting both buildings ideal even for […]

One of the two grandest houses built in Brownsville in the Depression decade was this country house, designed by Brownsville architects A. H. Woolridge and Frank E. Torres for Katherine Barnes and S. Miller Williams, Jr., of Tulsa OK. Williams and his brother founded a construction company that eventually specialized in steel pipeline construction. The […]

In his free time Brownsville Heritage Officer Roman McAllen, Assoc. AIA, a graduate of the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin, has rehabilitated a pair of dwellings for himself and his wife, Lisa, and also for his mother, Sybil Baytes McAllen, and brother Mark. The recycling of these houses demonstrates the […]